


Big Surprise

by JedimasterMegan



Series: Domestic AU [1]
Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: (yes she's a person in this au), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Gen, Jango is a good dad, Kamino is not the best, Typical Sibling Relationships, basically everything is explained as you read, btw fives and echo have actual names, so don't feel confused, this sets up basically the premise for this entire au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 16:21:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19976980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JedimasterMegan/pseuds/JedimasterMegan
Summary: The door bell rang again. “I’m coming, I’m coming!” he shouted, making his way to the front door. He had no idea who it could be. He lived alone, except for the weeks he had the kids, and he didn’t have visitors often.The door bell rang one more time as he started unlocking the door. Who could be so impatient that the-“Kids?” Jango said, looking over them with shock. “What are you doing here?” The wind shifted and started blowing onto the front porch. “Nevermind,” he said, shaking his head as Rex opened his mouth to answer. “Just get inside.”(Or: The kids show up at Jango's house unannounced one day, and he has a sinking suspicion things might soon be changing for their family.)





	Big Surprise

**Author's Note:**

> So this has been on tumblr for a while but now I'm finally putting it on here yayyyyy XD
> 
> For age reference:  
> Tup – 1   
> Fives/Echo – 2  
> Kix – 7  
> Rex/Cody – 10  
> Boba – 12
> 
> Enjoy! :)

“Just a minute!” Jango shouted down the hall. He shook the last few raindrops off of his coat and placed it on its hook. It started pouring outside a few hours earlier and he got caught in the rain on his way back from the airport. He was exhausted now, having been on a work trip, but at least his bosses were kind enough to give him the rest of the week off.

The door bell rang again. “I’m coming, I’m coming!” he shouted, making his way to the front door. He had no idea who it could be. He lived alone, except for the weeks he had the kids, and he didn’t have visitors often.

The door bell rang one more time as he started unlocking the door. _Who could be so impatient that the-_

“Kids?” Jango said, looking over them with shock. “What are you doing here?” The wind shifted and started blowing onto the front porch. “Nevermind,” he said, shaking his head as Rex opened his mouth to answer. “Just get inside.” He stood back in the doorway, waving them through. “Come on, out of the rain.” Rex nudged Felix and Eli through the door, followed by Kix and himself, then Cody carrying both his bags and the younger twins’, and finally Boba, who carried a sleeping Tup in his arms.

Jango took Tup from Boba and shut the door behind him. “What are you kids doing here?” he asked again.

“Mom told us we were staying with you for a while,” Boba answered. There was a hard set to his eldest’s gaze as he spoke that worried Jango. He looked out the window and could just barely make out the figure of his ex-wife’s car driving away through the rain.

“Go put your bags in your rooms and change out of your wet clothes,” he told the other kids. “I don’t want you to get sick.”

The five of them nearly knocked him over as they raced up the stairs to their rooms, leaving just him, Boba, and Tup in their wake of chaos and shouting. Speaking of Tup…

The one year old shifted in his arms, woken up by all the noise and movement of the last few minutes. Tup blinked up at him with his big, bright eyes and smiled.

“Hey, _ad'ika_ ,” Jango said, pressing kiss to his soft curls. “You can go back to sleep now.”

Tup tucked his head under Jango’s and closed his eyes again. Jango smiled as he locked the door and turned back to Boba.

“Your mom’s supposed to have you for the rest of the week,” he said. “What changed?”

Boba shook his head. “I don’t know. She just came to us out of nowhere and told us we needed to pack everything up because we were going to be staying with you.”

Jango sighed. _What was Kamino up to now?_ “I’ll call her in a bit and find out what happened,” Jango said, running a hand down his face. Boba still looked tense though. “She say anything else?” he asked.

Boba sighed, his shoulders finally falling. He may have been twelve, but Jango thought he was way too young to have all this happen to him. “No,” Boba replied. “She just- I wish she would have told me what’s going on.”

Jango patted him on the shoulder. “You and me both, _ad'ika_.” Boba gave him a weak smile then left to go unpack while Jango headed into the kitchen.

Kix was already there, sitting at the kitchen table with some paper and crayons, legs swinging as he worked. Jango wasn’t surprised that he was done unpacking, Kix was probably the most organized out of all his children. Cody was the only one who even came close to being as organized as Kix, though he supposed it was too early to tell for the younger twins and Tup.

“Did you have dinner yet?” Jango asked, ruffling his son’s hair as he walked past.

“Nope,” Kix replied as he batted his hand away. Jango smiled and walked over to the fridge.

“I wasn’t planning on having you over so soon, I don’t know that I have much in the way of food,” he said, scanning the various shelves. He would have to take a trip to the store tomorrow. And find someone to watch the kids while he was out. He’d learned from past experience that it was _definitely_ not a good idea to take all seven of his kids to go grocery shopping with him.

“I might have a frozen pizza and some pizza rolls in the freezer,” he said. “Would that be good enough just for tonight?”

Kix nodded enthusiastically. “Pizza rolls!” he exclaimed, jumping up and down.

Jango shushed him, trying very hard not to smile. “You’ll wake up Tup if you keep shouting like that.”

Kix’s eyes darted from him, to Tup, and back again. “Pizza rolls!” he whispered loudly, still with as much excitement as before. Jango couldn’t help but laugh and he ruffled Kix’s hair again.

“Go tell your brothers dinner will be ready in 10 minutes,” he said, pulling the food out from the freezer. Kix ran off, already shouting about pizza rolls halfway up the staircase.

Jango set Tup down in the playpen in the living room and finished putting the pizza rolls in the oven. Then he pulled out his cellphone and moved into the quiet of the back hall.

He punched Kamino’s number in, holding the cell up to his ear and waiting as it rang. It went straight to voicemail.

Jango sighed, ending the call. He thought about trying again, but the timer on the oven beeped. He flipped the phone shut and put it back in his pocket. He’d try calling Kamino again after dinner.

Felix and Eli were already sitting down at the table when he walked back in. Felix was rambling on and on to his twin and to Kix, who stood by Rex as they both tried to get the plates down. Jango helped pull them down to a reachable level and left the two of them to pass the dishes out as he pulled the food out of the oven. He set the tray on the table just as Cody and Boba walked in.

“ _Ulyc, bic nadala,_ ” Jango said, right as Cody popped a pizza roll into his mouth.

“Ow, ow, ow, _hot!”_ he exclaimed, nearly spiting it back out onto the plate.

Jango gave a him a look. “What did I just say?”

“ _N'eparavu takisit, buir,_ ” Cody mumbled through his full mouth.

Kix pulled a few off the pan for himself and the younger twins, shaking his fingers and blowing on them afterwards. “Hot, hot, hot!”

“Hot, hot, hot!” Eli repeated back. His son had a habit of repeating nearly everything he heard, earning him the nickname “Echo” from most of his family. Even Felix had taken to calling him by that name.

Said twin was now eyeing his plate carefully. He took a deep breath and tried to blow on the food.

“ _Udesii, ad'ika_ ,” Jango told him as his face started to get red. “You’ll make your head hurt.

” _Udesii!“_ Eli shouted. Jango looked over at him and saw that he somehow managed to get pizza sauce all over his hands.

"Alright, come here, my little Echo,” he said, lifting the two year old out of his seat. “Let’s get you washed up and then you can go back to eating.” He turned the faucet in the kitchen on and held Eli over the sink so he could rinse his hands.

“Me and Cody were never as bad as them, were we, Dad?” Rex asked from behind him.

“Oh no,” Jango said, shutting off the water and grabbing a towel. “You two were _much_ worse.”

“Hey!” they shouted in unison.

Jango smirked. “Well, at least you were better than Boba. The stories I could tell about _that kid_ -”

“Dad!” Boba hissed, cheeks and ears quickly growing red.

“Ooh, Dad has _stories_ about you?” Cody said, resting his chin in his hands and looking more devious than a ten year old had any right to be.

Rex, always following the lead of his twin, moved his chair closer to Boba and grinned. “I bet those stories would be _very_ interesting to hear.”

“ _Dad!”_ Boba hissed again.

“ _Adike, gev,_ ” Jango replied, sitting Eli back down in his seat. Rex and Cody backed off. For now at least. They would make another attempt at getting dirt on their _ori'vod_ later, Jango was sure.

“Well, Boba, since I came to your rescue,” Jango smirked, “mind getting Tup and feeding him for me?” Boba narrowed his eyes, but nodded his head and got up to get Tup. Jango grabbed the cereal from the pantry and poured it into a bowl along with some milk. He set it down in front of Tup’s highchair just as Boba walked in with his youngest brother.

They set Tup up in his chair, the one year old watching their movements with wide eyes. “Boba’s gonna feed you, alright?” he said. Tup looked over at his _ori'vod_ and grinned, smacking his hands against the table and making happy shrieking noises.

“I’m going to go make a few calls,” he said to the rest of them. “Can I trust you to stay out of trouble for a few minutes?”

“Trouble!” Eli exclaimed.

“Nooooooo!” Felix moaned, giggling and slapping his palms to his forehead. “No trouble, Echo!”

Jango smiled and shook his head before walking up the stairs to the master bedroom and shutting the door behind him. He pulled out his phone and tried calling Kamino again.

The phone rang, and rang, and rang. No answer.

He sighed as the pre-recorded message played. “Kamino, _what happened?”_ he said, leaving her a voicemail this time. “You weren’t supposed to drop the kids off with me till next week. You didn’t call, didn’t leave a message to warn me, nothing. A few minutes earlier and I wouldn’t have been _home_ for them! You-” Jango cut himself off. This wasn’t the time for this. He and Kamino could sort out all their problems later. What mattered now was finding out what happened.

“Just call me back soon,” he said, hanging up.

He looked down at his phone, debating on whether or not he should call again. Then he remembered. If Kamino wasn’t answering, there was another thing he could try.

He dialed a new number, after a few minutes of searching for it, and waited for someone to pick up.

“ _Hello?”_ the man on the other end said.

“Mr. Dyas?”

“ _Ah, Mr. Fett! Nice to talk with you again!”_ Sifo Dyas, the landlord of Kamino’s apartment building, was a kindly old man, and one well acquainted with their family. He helped them smooth out their arrangements back when he and Kamino first got the divorce, and for that Jango would always be grateful. “ _Can I help you with something?”_

“Actually, you can,” he said. “Is Kamino there? I haven’t been able to reach her on her cell.”

The other end was silent. “Mr. Dyas?” he asked.

_“I- I’m sorry, Mr. Fett, I thought you were aware_ ,” the man stammered.

“Aware?” he asked, worry seeping into his voice no matter how hard he tried to prevent it. “Aware of what?”

“ _Well…_ ” the old man paused. “ _I’m afraid that Ms. Kamino has terminated her contract with me._ ”

Jango nearly dropped the phone. “She did _what?”_

“ _I’m sorry, Mr. Fett. I thought you knew._ ”

“No- no, don’t be sorry, Mr. Dyas, I-” Jango took a deep breath. “Thank you for telling me.”

“ _Of course._ ” The unsaid words hung in the silence between them. Jango realized he wasn’t the only one who saw what Kamino might have done. It shocked Jango. Suddenly, everything felt very, _very_ real. “ _Should I, uh, send any items left in her apartment to you then?”_ the man asked hesitantly, cutting through the silence and Jango’s spiraling thoughts.

He fought to keep his voice even. “Yes. Please. Thank you, Mr. Dyas.”

“ _Anytime_.” The older man’s voice took on a somber tone. “ _Take care, Mr. Fett._ ”

Jango nodded, then realized Mr. Dyas couldn’t see the motion. “Same to you,” he replied, ending the call. He dialed Kamino again right away.

It didn’t even ring.

“ _Sorry, this phone has been disconnected from serv-_ ”

Jango didn’t bother listening to the rest of the message. He sat down on the edge of his bed and buried his head in his hands, trying to convince himself that this wasn’t happening.

Something similar had happened years ago, before Eli and Felix were born. One day Kamino had just up and left, checked herself into a motel, and didn’t come back for four weeks. She left a note for him so he knew where she was, but that was it. He called her, attempted to talk to her a few times in person, but otherwise she avoided all contact with him and their family. No matter how many times he pleaded with her, she wouldn’t come back. It was probably the most stressful month of his entire life.

Then one day she walked back into the house and pretended like nothing ever happened. Jango didn’t know what was up with her. Every time he tried talking to her about it, she’d change the subject. He would have done anything to help her, but she refused him every time, the tensions between them only getting worse and worse by the day. That was when they decided on divorce.

And now it seemed like Kamino had up and done it again. This time, there was no warning or note left behind. She cut off all contact with them. Jango couldn’t help but think that this time she had left for good.

He called a few other friends of the family and all said the same thing: Kamino had cut off all contact with everyone she knew, disappearing without telling anyone where she was going.

That was it then. She really had left.

Jango rubbed a hand over his face, falling back on the bed. There were so many things running through his mind. How he was going to deal with her being completely gone, people he needed to notify about the current situation, gaining full custody of the kids-

_The kids_.

He bolted upright. _God, he had to tell the kids._ He knew their relationship with their mom recently hadn’t been the best, but this news was going to _crush_ them.

“Dad?” a voice came from outside his closed door. It sounded like Kix. “Are you in there?”

“I’ll be down in a minute, _ad'ika_ ,” he called back, grateful for the fact that his voice stayed even. He heard footsteps heading down the stairs and took a deep breath. It was better to tell them now than to have them find out later.

He went back downstairs. The kids were in the living room. Tup was back in his playpen, Kix was playing on the floor with Felix and Eli, and Rex, Cody, and Boba had all taken up spots on the couch as they watched something on TV. When he came in, Rex moved to sit on the floor to make room for him.

_Haar'chak_ , his kids were so nice. They didn’t deserve to have this happen to them.

“ _Buir?”_ Kix said, getting up and sitting on his lap. “I overheard you talking about Mom.” His son looked at him worriedly. “Is she okay?”

“I… I don’t know, _ad'ika_ ,” he replied, heart clenching at the thought of the conversation he was about to have.

“What do you mean you don’t know?” Boba asked, sitting up a bit straighter.

“She won’t answer any of my calls,” Jango sighed. “…her phone’s been disconnected.”

“Disconnected?” Rex said, tilting his head back to see them better. Even upside down Jango could see the confusion on Rex’s features. “Why would it be disconnected?”

“I overheard Mom say something about selling the apartment,” Kix mumbled. Kix turned in his lap and buried his face in Jango’s chest. “She was acting weird. I didn’t like it.”

Jango smoothed Kix’s hair away from his face and kissed his son’s head, holding him tight. “She say anything else?” he asked. Kix shook his head.

“Dad…” Boba said, eyes wide. “ _Did_ Mom sell the apartment?”

He closed his eyes and let out a sigh. He wasn’t going to lie to them. He couldn’t. Not ever. “Yeah. She sold it. Mr. Dyas confirmed it.”

Boba sucked in a breath, looking pained. Tup started whining in the playpen and Rex got up to let him out, looking between them all warily as he did. “Cody,” Boba said, nearly shaking as he grabbed his brother’s arm. “When you were pulling our suitcases out of the truck, was there another one in there that wasn’t ours?”

Cody frowned. “What? There wasn’t another suitcase. The only other thing in there was-” Cody stopped, eyebrows raising as something dawned on him. “I think I remember seeing something all the way in the back, covered by a blanket. It…. it could have been a suitcase. Maybe.” Cody looked between him and Boba. “But what does that have to do with anything?”

Boba’s face fell. “Did she…?” He trailed off, but Jango still knew what he was asking. His eldest was smart, and all the clues pointed to one thing.

“Yeah,” he said softly. “I think she did.”

Boba bit his bottom lip. He looked like he was trying not to cry. “How _could_ she?” he whispered. Then he scowled, pushing himself off the couch and storming away. Jango let him go.

“You guys aren’t making any sense,” Rex said, setting Tup on the ground by Echo and Felix. “What happened with Mom?”

Cody moved closer to him, curling up at his side. His eyes held the first traces of tears and the sight made Jango’s heart ache. “Mom’s gone, isn’t she?”

Jango swallowed, nodding. “I’m sorry,” he said, wrapping his other arm around Cody and holding him close. Kix started sniffling and Jango pressed another kiss into his hair. “I’m so sorry.”

He looked back up at Rex, who was shaking his head like he couldn’t believe it. “No, she- she _couldn’t_ \- _how_ , she can’t- she can’t just _leave_ us-”

“ _Ad'ika_ ,” Jango said, trying to get his son to stop spiraling. Rex was the type of person who often needed to sort out his thoughts, but sometimes it could get out of hand. “ _Sushir at ni._ It’ll be okay, we’ll-”

“You don’t know that,” he whispered. “You don’t know that it’ll be okay.

"Rex…” Jango tried, but stopped once he found he couldn’t think of anything else to say. He didn’t know how to comfort his son. Not over something like this.

Rex shook his head, turning and walking away. Cody, after a moment of indecision, got up and chased after his twin. Kix just buried his face further into Jango’s chest and Jango rocked them both back and forth. Felix, Echo, and Tup watched them from the floor. They didn’t understand what was happening, they were too young. He wondered if they would even remember their mother when they were older.

Because Kamino was gone, and no one knew if she would ever come back. She left them, and now Jango was the single parent of seven children.

_Haar'chak_ , what were they going to do?

**Author's Note:**

> MANDO'A  
> • Ad'ika – little one, son, daughter, of any age  
> • Ulyc, bic nadala – Careful, it’s hot  
> • N'eparavu takisit – sorry (literally: I eat my insult)  
> • Buir – gender neutral term for parent; in this case, father  
> • Udesii – calm down  
> • Adike, gev – kids, knock it off (rough translation)  
> • Ori'vod – big brother, older brother  
> • Haar'chak – damn it  
> • Sushir at ni – listen to me
> 
> If you're looking for more content in this AU of mine, you can find me at jedi-master-megan on tumblr and look up "domestic AU" in the tags!


End file.
